We woke up from our (not so scenic) free camp at a service station on Sunday the 31st of July and headed for the beach town of Pärnu – apparently the place to be for holidaying Estonians. – to catch some sunshine (and also a few showers but we can’t have it all)
We parked the van up at a free car park recommended on campercontact.com just by the river (GPS N58.38778 E24.49528) and left it there for the afternoon, we actually moved to a carpark nearer the road for the night as there were quite a few people rummaging in bins etc, in the original carpark and while we didn’t feel too unsafe always better safe than sorry.
Pärnu wasn’t an exceptional city by any means but I can see why people would come here for their summer jollies. The beach running parallel to the city is really, really nice – soft white sand, shallow warm water (not quite as clear as the water in Scandinavia but it was just a touch warmer) and loads of changing cubicles and kids play areas. The city itself is small enough to walk around easily, which we were doing when we got caught in a ridiculous downpour and had to shelter in a pizza restaurant with some cups of tea for half an hour, and there are plenty of restaurants and cafes to choose from – we struggled to find traditional Estonian food but we still treated ourselves to a night out at an Irish pub, we love Estonian prices! We managed two main courses, 2 glasses of (very yummy) wine and two pints of Estonian beer for the grand total of about €22 – just a little bit cheaper than our last meal out in Norway. Before we went and got tucked up in the caddy we went for a stroll along the quayside which was just down from our camping spot – this walk takes you past the Yacht Club (which has free wifi with great range if you need it) and seems to be a popular strolling spot. We spotted a camper and caravan further down so went for a nosey and discovered three extremely worse for wear people trying to do something (?!) fairly acrobatic with a boat trailer and a pulley so we quietly left them too it and went to bed.
Overall we liked Pärnu, it had a small town feel which was nice because as you may have picked up from previous posts, we’re not exactly city folk. We never felt unsafe and it had a real festive, holiday feel to it. The centre of the city is like a little old town with pastel coloured buildings and little alleyways while the outskirts have a few big shopping centres and supermarkets.
We were planning on hanging around a bit longer and having a proper beach day at Pärnu but unfortunately when we woke up on Monday the clouds had made an appearance so no sun worshipping for us – instead, we headed for yet another border. Latvia – here we come!
tiny van adventures 